Lipstick Jungle

t be? The day was, in a sense, like giving birth to a child—harrowing, sweaty, frightening, jubilant—requiring every ounce of your strength, but eventually, you did forget about it. You blocked all the bad parts out of your mind, and when you looked at your child, you understood how much it was worth it.

And just like childbirth, no one ever explained how painful attaining this achievement was really going to be. It was something you had to go through yourself to understand—although, to be fair, childbirth probably was a lot harder. But when it was over, you had a beautiful baby. Whereas in this case, when it was over and Mike was being ushered out by security and Victor was shaking her hand, she suddenly realized that she now had Victor Matrick, and she was probably going to be stuck with him for the rest of his life.

For as long as he shall live, she thought wryly.

When she’d left Victor’s office the first time that morning, after that disturbing scene in which she’d been worried that she was going to be the one who was fired, she’d gotten into the elevator and found that her heart was pounding, and her underarms felt soaked with sweat. She wasn’t clear on how it had happened, but she was shaken by the side of Victor she’d seen. The unpredictability, the sheer unreasonableness of the man—it was like dealing with a large animal that operated only on instinct. And for a moment she’d been frightened for herself—what if she ended up like Victor Matrick? There was no telling what he might do to her, or the kinds of moral challenges he might test her with in the future—he had nearly tried to force her to talk about Wendy’s divorce. It wasn’t simply that she had new business challenges ahead, but that there would be emotional and psychological issues at stake as well. But by the time the elevator had glided down to her floor, she had decided that she could handle them, that she wanted to take on the challenge. And then she had walked down the hall and found Mike Harness sitting in her office.

Waiting for her.

So it was the same as it always was, she thought grimly. Mike knew. She didn’t even act surprised to see him. “Hello, Mike,” she said, walking around him to take a seat behind her desk. She hit a button on her computer and the screen sprang to life.

“I thought maybe we could have lunch today,” Mike said. He was holding a pen in his hand, and he kept clicking the top of it.

He was still technically her boss, and she couldn’t technically refuse. “Let me see if I can rearrange my schedule.” She pressed the intercom button. “Sally?” she asked. “Can you bring in my diary, please?” Mike remained sitting in her office during the entire proceeding, as if he wanted to make sure that she wasn’t going to try to get out of it.

They had lunch at a brightly colored touristy place where people in publishing went when they didn’t want to be seen.

“I’m disturbed by these rumors, Nico,” he said, inserting a tortellini into his mouth. Mike’s skin was the color of old wood—he had just returned from a long weekend in St. Barts, he said. She nodded. She had ordered veal piccata, and wasn’t going to have more than a few bites. “I am too,” she said. She signaled to the waiter for more sparkling water. “But they’re only rumors, Mike. How could I leave Bonfire?”

“Someone once said that the New York Post knows more than the CIA,” Mike remarked.

“That’s probably true,” Nico said, “given recent worldwide events. But the CIA doesn’t need to sell newspapers—and the Post does. So there you go,” she added.

“Yeah,” Mike said suspiciously. “There you go.” He paused. “I want you to keep one thing in mind,” he said. “I found you. I brought you over to Splatch-Verner in the first place. Without me, you basically wouldn’t exist.” He shrugged. “You know I make it a policy to be honest with my employees. You’re not that creative. You’re highly detail-oriented, I’ll give you that. But you need more than that to run the entire division.”

She smiled. Was he threatening her? There was, she thought, a very particular type of person who always tried to take credit for other people’s success, while managing to put them down in the process. An egotist, a person who always had to put themselves on the center of the stage, even if the play wasn’t about them. Don’t do this, Mike, she thought. Don’t make this unnessarily ugly for yourself at the end. And because it didn’t matter anymore, she said aloud, “You’re right, Mike.” Then she changed the subject.

Mike had a teenager from an early marriage who was about to graduate from high school. They talked about the pros and cons of various universities. Every time Mike tried to change the subject, she brought up college again. It was evil, but there was no other way to handle it, and so they parted at the elevators with Mike knowing, but not knowing anything specific.

You’re dead, she thought, as the elevator doors closed behind him.

At four o’clock, Victor Matrick’s secretary, Maureen, called.

“Victor would like to see you in his office,” she said.

She walked into Victor’s office a minute before Mike. “Ready, Nico?” Victor asked. “This is going to be just like Dr. Phil.”

Nico had never seen Dr. Phil, but she couldn’t imagine that it could ever be so brutal.

Mike entered seconds later. As he stepped through the doorway, there was a brief second when his face registered surprise and shock, followed by a moment in which his eyes darted back and forth, like an animal that suddenly finds itself in a cage. Nico was standing by Victor’s desk, and Mike must have wondered if she and Victor were in this together, or if she and Mike were both in trouble with Victor. Either way, his strategy was to disassociate himself from Nico by ignoring her. He walked by, deliberately avoiding her gaze, and sat down in front of Victor’s desk.

“Well, Victor,” Mike said, perversely jovial. “What’s this about?”

Victor pushed his tattered mane back from his forehead. “Nico says you’re about to be sued.”

“Nico?” Mike looked at her, feigning astonishment. Underneath the surprise was hatred. “What the hell does she know?”

“More than you do, apparently,” Victor said mildly.

“For what?” Mike asked dismissively.

“Breach of contract. Glynnis Rourke,” Nico said.

“Glynnis Rourke is a no-talent nut job who can’t even make it to a meeting on time.”

“I’ve got the e-mails. From you to her. You called her stupid . . .” Nico said.

“And she is . . .”